Backstory can often be a difficult element to work into a series. To keep the action in the present and moving forward, there’s rarely time to go into the background of the characters, let alone the main character of the series. This is why side stories like Fairest and The Wind Through the Keyhole exist. There’s a subtle need to explore the troubled past of a main character, but to get into the depth of their backstory requires a significant amount of words that won’t fit into already full books in the main series.
In The Wind Through the Keyhole, Stephen King lets the reader see the origins of Roland the Gunslinger. What’s interesting here is that King does so in a series of nested stories, almost evoking something from Inception (2010) or Cloud Atlas. After all, a single story hardly affects real people but is instead a string of interactions that themselves were influenced by the past events of other characters’ lives. And while knowing these stories doesn’t add to the whole of the Dark Tower series, they confirm some things that Roland alluded to from his past.
With many moments in the core Dark Tower series being used to show character development for the rest of the members of the ka-tet, The Wind Through the Keyhole provides the foundation for the titular Gunslinger that was mostly missing from the main series. Considering that King wrote this book almost a decade after the series concluded, it’s no wonder that the universe of Mid-World feels as rich as ever in this side story. Adding this mid-series book after the fact meant that King still had more to clarify and The Wind Through the Keyhole definitely delivers.
A Dark Tower side story with plenty of character background, I give The Wind Through the Keyhole 4.0 stars out of 5.